The Trump-Putin Question No One is Asking: What To Do With Russia?
Under any other circumstance, the deaths of 200,000 Americans would be considered a grievous act of war mandating a response in kind.
The delicate balance of the Cold War was kept in check by a certain policy most commonly known by an acronym many have prosaically quipped as “appropriate”: MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction. In short, we were assured the Soviet Union would not attack us, because if they did, we would attack in kind; and the nature of both the first and reprisal strikes would render both nations virtually uninhabitable, potentially for the rest of history — potentially, bringing the rest of the world with them. “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought with, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones”, oft-quoted Albert Einstein.
As dire the outcome of a WWIII would’ve been, the assured destruction was considered a necessary component of keeping the peace. Arguably, it’s more a fault of the human condition than anything truly ingenious in the name of detente. After Khrushchev took on the role of Premier and the consequent wave of “de-Stalinization” — and despite the bluster of his infamous “We Will Bury You” speech — the stance of the Soviet Union moved away from an offensive push and more towards a retaliatory “second-strike” nature under the assumption that the United States was prepared to rid the world of Communism once and for all in dramatic fashion. In essence, each nation’s nuclear arsenal was finely tuned and arranged to respond to a first strike from the other — neither nation has a doctrinal “first strike” policy. The Soviets, like ourselves, had assumed the other side wanted the annihilation of the other when in fact no one did. The whole premise of MAD and indeed the Cold War was based on sheer paranoia.
Khrushchev himself had time to realize this, indeed, in one of his other famous speeches prior to “We Will Bury You”. Eventually, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, a direct hotline linking the White House to the Kremlin was hoped to help de-escalate the Cold War and open up communications and understanding.
Those days are now long gone. Khrushchev and his successors, as well as both Eisenhower, JFK and so on were reasonable men interested in the freedom and well-being of their nations and of all people, just differing in what that exactly constitutes. None of them intentionally and willfully committed grievous acts of mass death upon the civilian populations of the other. None of them, not even the Soviet Premiers, were at the level of threat to democracy and indeed life itself that we are currently witnessing right now.
Putin is quintessentially the proto-Trump. He has rolled back much of the progress Russia and the Soviet Union has made before that, on the premise that these are worthy sacrifices for a stronger, better nation. Putin has enforced domestic sacrifices for the sake of a stronger international position — namely the expansion of military powers and in particular greater development of advanced weapons systems with little or nil social return. Part of the expansion of global strategic involvement has been Syria in particular, propping up a brutal and failing regime in a conflict that has been especially taxing to Russians, literal and metaphorically, in a manner similar to the U.S. involvement in Vietnam and “The War on Terror” or the Soviet Union’s own venture in Afghanistan.
On the other hand, Putin still eyes the U.S. in that old Cold War vein, himself being a part of the KGB Cold War legacy. A perpetual enemy, and if that enemy can be taken down a peg, Russia will benefit greatly, even if that benefit is only visible in the form of an extremely vague somehow. And there is mounting evidence that one way or another Putin holds massive sway over Trump. First, the circumstances surrounding what caused Trump to be impeached in the first place and Trump’s meddling in the Ukraine. Then there is the controversy of Trump and Putin regarding apparent bounties the latter has put on the heads of U.S. servicepeople — itself, by definition, an open act of war. Most recently, the bizarre open interest Trump has of pardoning “whistle-blower” Edward Snowden who, mind you, is currently in exile being asylumed — in Russia. More overtly, Putin seems keen on playing Trump into his own weaknesses, including using the pandemic to undermine Trump — an act that will no doubt kill further people.
If it is true that the President of this nation has been compromised by Putin in some form, it means Putin has the blood of 200,000 Americans on his hands as much as Trump does.
If that’s the case, what should the American response be?
In a previous era, there would be a serious response as to what that response should constitute, if any response should be taken at all. Do you let a clear threat get away with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans or do you let it go as a response would surely result in many more? Rather than engage in any one-sided, non-interactive discussion here I encourage you to review the film Fail-Safe if you’re not already familiar with that piece, as this hypothetical is core to that film’s premise.
But make no mistake: nothing will happen as long as Trump is in charge. He is, after all, the very instrument used to wrought this destruction in the first place. There are already murmurs spreading that the Presidency might be life or death for Trump, or at least a case of continued freedom, if ties to Putin are that strong to constitute nothing short of treason of the highest order — a treason that, yet again, has killed hundreds of thousands of American civilians, much more than any clear designated combatant in history. Perhaps combined.
Another thing to make clear: this cannot be a vengeance wrought upon the Russian people themselves. Our quarrel is not with them, and as far as I’m concerned they’re as much a victim of this circumstance as we are. Their freedoms and safety are being just as systematically eroded under Putin as ours are under Trump — by many-fold, in comparison.
Our response to Putin must focus on Putin, and thus must mirror what our rational responses must be to bring accountability, responsibility and justice to those who are behind the erosion of our freedoms and safety domestically. This first and foremost requires an actual investigation to bring irrefutable facts to the truth to avoid the types of witch-hunts the Trump administration itself is now infamous for. If there is in fact no credible connection between Trump and Putin, all the better. A crisis of an external power deeply wounding the nation, perhaps permanently, may be a crisis outside of our ability to respond in the middle of many, many others. It might push hotter heads to respond as if we’ve been attacked by a nuclear strike, in kind. It would make the COVID-19 pandemic look like a holiday and when combined with this could set the entire human race back to the 17th century or worse for the duration of the species, if the species is lucky enough to endure at all.
But what if Trump and Putin are connected in a manner that is clearly treasonous? Then our only solutions would be diplomacy, appeal, and a waiting game. We would have to appeal to the international courts. We would have to appeal to the Russian people themselves and hope they are sympathetic to not allow a leader who would not only permanently undermine and damage another nation but kill over 200,000 people in doing so — even though at least a small part of that population may only approve of Putin for doing so, perhaps openly. And we may have to wait for Putin to get out of power, one way or another, if he ever does. There is not just a significant chance but the outright likelihood that Putin will simply get away with this.
But again, that’s if he holds any accountability at all. And there are ways the U.S. can get justice, or payback, if you will. Harsh sanctions that undermine Putin’s strategic goals, especially sanctions that prevent Russia from exporting military technology without affecting civilian commerce lest we repeat the blunders of Saddam Iraq or still addles the people of Cuba. We can put pressure on personal assets. We can even make Putin uncomfortable from afar by making dramatic examples of domestic collaborators.
But we also need to be aware of the consequences of any errant pursuits of “justice”. In Fail-Safe, these consequences resulted in a death count that far, far exceeds what COVID-19 has done so far. U.S. and Russia relations had been cooling for four years already, perhaps ironically all under the aegis of Trump. COVID resentment and meddling may in fact result in a brand new U.S.-Russian Nuclear Cold War, where the daily call of wearing masks may give way to a true throwback, reinstated desk-ducking drills and fallout shelters as we may enter into a new age of nuclear fear.
Hopefully, we will find out that will never have to be the case.
